In Spirit, if Nothing Else
by faemouse
Summary: Sam witnesses the results of Daniel's epiphany and has a few of her own. Sequel to 'Lie of Omission'. Spoilers for S7 'Fallen'.


Title: In Spirit, if Nothing Else

Author: Faemouse

Genre: Drama/Angst

Rating: PG-13

Pairing: Jack/Daniel

Summary: Sequel to Lie of Omission. Sam witnesses the results of Daniel's epiphany and has a few of her own.

Sam couldn't breathe. Her mouth was open and her lungs were pulling for all they were worth, but it was as if the atmosphere had spontaneously decided to take a vacation. The two men not a hundred feet away, Sam noted, didn't seem to notice the lack of oxygen, or if they did, they didn't seem to care. Daniel had the colonel pressed up against a tree, one hand braced against the colonel's bicep and the other tangled in his hair. Sam felt her face flame, watching their jaws working, the tendons of their necks standing out in sharp relief, the pink flash of tongues. A wave of mortification, jealously, and lust ripped through her, and suddenly she could breathe again, air rushing into her lungs harsh and ragged and loud.  
_  
__Shit._

She spun around, quickly marching back the way she came, ignoring Daniel calling her name and O'Neil calling her rank, and wasn't that a swift kick in the pants, because thus far she'd only seen two men she could very easily – maybe even with one of them already had – fall in love with, trying to eat each other alive. The press of their bodies, god they'd been so close, she'd just seen need and lust and, most importantly to her, exclusion of anyone else.

But now? Now she saw her commanding officer making out with his subordinate. His _male_ subordinate. Fuck! She'd just gotten Daniel back, and he was just getting himself back, too, and SG-1 was finally, finally, finally getting back to the well oiled machine it felt like it hadn't been for almost four years, and Sam didn't want to loose that because of her goddamn duty as the second in command and 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell'.

She came upon Teal'c around the next bend in the old, stone road, as he was bending to adjust the level of their brand new theodolite.

"You have already found the device you – you are distressed, SamanthaCarter."

"I, what? No, I'm fine." She replied, shrugging off her P-90 and small pack simply for having something to do.

"Indeed you are not. Your face is most pale, and you eyes are wet. What has happened?" Teal'c pressed, picking up his own weapon and scanning the area for danger. Sam shook her head.

"I simply witnessed something I was never intended to witness, Teal'c, and I don't think I'll be needing the magnetic locators, anyway." She replied, pacing a bit and forcing herself to take deep, even breaths. Teal'c watched all of this with his usual stoicism, before folding up the tripod and removing the theodolite.

"You witnessed Colonel O'Neil and DanielJackson in an embrace." He said. Sam almost tripped over her own feet.

"What? I, how did you, I never said…"

"I am correct, then."

Sam wearily leaned against a convenient boulder and pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes, wishing fervently this day had never happened. God, how had everything gotten so confusing, so horribly and so quickly?

"I have been aware for some months, now, of the tension between DanielJackson and Colonel O'Neil. It was only a matter of time before-"

"No, Teal'c," Sam interrupted, "I didn't see anything."

"I do not believe this to be true, Major Carter."

"It is." She replied, re-shouldering her pack and P-90 before loading the rest of their equipment onto FRED and making the slow way back to base camp, Teal'c following.

"I understand. You take back your statement because of the United States Military policy regarding such unions between-"

"No," Sam interrupted again, more sharply this time, "I take back my statement because it was false and I did not see anything."

"Indeed."

When they got back to base camp, Daniel was sitting stiffly in a canvas chair, scribbling furiously in one of his numerous notebooks. He looked up when he heard them, paled, and opened his mouth to say something, but Jack emerged from the forest trail leading to the stargate and announced that, in light of nothing being found and some diplomatic unrest on P56 – 421, SG-1 was going home early to prep for an emergency deployment. His face was hard, his eyes blank – military through and through. Sam appreciated it, drew on the protection it afforded, and emulated the strategy. So long as she was Major Carter and he was Colonel O'Neil, it was easy to forget about what she'd seen earlier. Then man she was looking at now bore almost no resemblance to the needy, wonton – _no, stop, don't go there_. Daniel looked lost, and Teal'c looked as perturbed as he ever did, but no one said anything further as they systematically and efficiently broke down the camp, loaded up FRED, and made their way back to the stargate. Once home, everything was a blur of post-mission physicals, debriefings, briefings, and then finally being released to go home.

Sam didn't think she'd been that grateful to get off the mountain in her entire life.

~*~*~

The mission to P56 – 421 went as smoothly as could be expected. Evidently, word had gotten back to the Prime Minister of Pelwair regarding Daniel's return to life, and as Daniel had been chief in hashing out treaty negotiations in the first place and considering the Pelwaians felt certain aspects of the treaty were not being held faithfully by the SGC, SG-1 had barely been on-world for twenty-four hours before leaving again.

It got hairy, for a while, when Daniel's amnesia became known. The archaeologist-cum-diplomat had done all he could to appear one-hundred percent compos mentis, and you could see in the expression on his face when little facts and memories of conversations past came back to him, but Minister Rothsen almost reneged entirely on the treaty when he discovered Daniel literally hadn't remembered the name of his Chief Assistant until Sam had rescued him and greeted the woman by name, first. Thus ensued nearly eighteen hours of negotiation, much of which involved Daniel being sequestered in Minister Rothsen's office and explaining exactly what Ascension and Descension were and, yes, he still had all of his memories, he just didn't have access to them yet, while Sam, Teal'c, and O'Neil sat in the antechamber and _did not talk_.

In fact, not talking seemed to be the order of the day. Whenever they were in the same room together, and Sam made a point of keeping those instances to a bare minimum, Colonel O'Neil would either natter on about absolutely nothing of substance until she left, or he'd study her with the wary look of an injured animal who knew their blood was on the air and was expecting every predator within a ten mile radius to show up any minute. Teal'c had locked himself in his quarters as soon as they'd been debriefed and was keel'no'reeming up a storm, or at least that was the assumption because no one had seen him since. Sam decided she wasn't going to get any work done, and since SG-1 had two days of down time, she decided to go home and vegetate the rest of the day away, have a bath, watch some TV, go to bed. Maybe, when she woke up, it would all have been a dream.

She'd just sat down to a Law and Order marathon on USA with a glass of Bordeaux, when her doorbell rang.

Finding Daniel on her front stoop didn't surprise her, but finding the Colonel did. For all that no one had said anything of importance the past two days, she and Colonel O'Neil had communicated lots between the lines. That was between CO and 2IC, though, and evidently O'Neil felt they needed to actually speak, this time as friends. Actually, considering this was the first time she'd ever seen Colonel O'Neil uncomfortable in jeans and a Minnesota Wild jersey, Sam suspected this impromptu visit was Daniel's idea. _Christ_, she winced, taking in his earnest, worried expression. Concern practically radiated from him – she could almost see him vibrating with the need to _make it right_.

She stepped aside, letting them in and then walked into the kitchen. She grabbed two Coors from the fridge, twisting the caps off and handing them to Daniel before taking a long pull from her wine. Daniel gave one to Jack, who'd parked himself on Sam's tabletop, before pulling out a chair for himself and rolling his own bottle in the palms of his hands.

"Sam, I need to apologize."

"Daniel, there's nothing-"

"No," He cut her off, "I mean I'm sorry for the position I've put you in regarding your loyalty to Jack and I and your loyalty to the Air Force. I didn't remember."

_What?_

The confusion must have been evident on her face, because Daniel sighed – exasperation with himself, she thought – and pulled his hand over his face, fiddled with his glasses.

" The Descension has been particularly difficult, Sam. For all that I didn't remember anything at first, I still had all of my feelings and emotions. When I saw you and Teal'c for the fist time almost a year ago, I had all of these immediate, gut reactions to your faces, but I'd never seen you before. And when I saw Jack, I swear it was like getting my arm back after not even realizing it was gone in the first place, but how the hell do you not realize something like that?" Daniel paused, took a drink of beer and looked up at Jack. Jack was watching him intently, eyes projecting love and regret and support, and he looked back at Sam.

"But I still didn't know who he was, who any of you were, and even as I started regaining my memories, what exactly Jack was to me stayed buried. I don't know why. On PX5– 649 two days ago, I was shifting through the crumbled brick and debris, and I got a sudden memory of Jack being jealous of my fascination with rocks, and everything just snapped into place. I still don't have each individual memory of our life together, but I finally know.

"Sam, I can't begin to describe how good it felt to have such a huge part of myself returned to me. I just needed to…" Daniel took a shuddering breath, and Jack reached out to place a steadying hand on the nape of his neck, Daniel arching into the touch – Christ. Same closed her eyes; she couldn't bear to look at something so intimate. Daniel's words, _life together…missing arm…part of myself…_they were sappy, but you couldn't miss the raw emotion in them, and Sam didn't know what she'd thought she'd seen on PX5 – 649 but it wasn't this.

"It wasn't until I saw you that I remembered 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell."

"Oh, jeez, Daniel." Sam breathed.

"I'm sorry, Sam. So sorry. If I'd known, if I'd remembered sooner, I wouldn't have done that. I never meant to put you in this position."

"Daniel, I'm not going to say anything."

"Carter," Colonel O'Neil cut in, speaking up for the first time, "don't be hasty. You've just found out your male CO is in a sexual relationship with his equally male subordinate. You are obligated to report me."

"Do you _want_ to be court marshaled?"

"Well, no, but neither do you, I'm sure."

"I wouldn't be."

"Carter, you're _obligated_-"

"I'd argue 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell'."

"That's not what 'don't tell' means, and you know it." O'Neil replied, and Sam shook her head in frustration.

"Maybe not to the letter of it, but in spirit that's how I've always interpreted the clause. Listen, I'm not going to say I'm not hurt or I'm not mad, but it's a personal thing and not worth destroying your career or your lives over. Really, the only issue I care about is from the CO/subordinate perspective, and whether or not this will effect the team dynamic. You've obviously been together for a while…" She trailed off, looking to Daniel, but he looked just as lost as she did. _Oh god_, she thought, _he doesn't know, either_.

"Three years," O'Neil supplied, "not including the time Daniel was Ascended."

" What?" Daniel swiveled around to look up at the colonel. "Are you sure? I keep having flashes of Abydos, and…"

"You're probably remembering Shau're."

"No, this was before her."

"Daniel," and O'Neil's face looked so drawn and pained, "later, please." Sam sighed, throwing back the last of her wine, hardly able to understand what she was hearing. Since Abydos, the first mission…good god.

"Anyway," She said, pouring herself another glass, "it's obviously never caused any problems off world, so I see no reason to report anything."

"Sam, are you-"

"Yes, I'm sure!"

"I was going to ask if you, if we, are okay?" Daniel replied, softly. Same took a deep breath, and let it out in a long, controlled stream.

"We," Sam replied, "are okay. I…well I have some personal issues to work through, but I promise I will, and I won't let it get in the way of work or our friendship." Daniel looked like he wanted to press the issue, but O'Neil slid off the table and clapped a hand to his shoulder.

"C'mon, Danny. Let's go home."

"I…yeah, okay." He replied. He hesitated for a minute, and then Sam found herself wrapped up in Daniel's arms, warm and large and solid and alive, and for a minute she was just so glad he was back and getting _more_ back every day that she didn't care about everything else and just reveled in the smell and feel of her friend, there, in her arms. Daniel released her, smiling softly, before nodding almost imperceptibly and turning to leave. Jack gave her one of his unreadable looks, before quirking his lips and firing off a sloppy salute. Sam chuckled and returned the gesture, and then they were gone, and she was alone in her house with nothing but her wine and the sounds of the traffic outside and Christopher Meloni roughing up suspects on her TV to keep her company.

She didn't fall asleep crying, but it was a near thing.


End file.
